Nouriel Roubini, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and Chairman of Roubini Macro Associates, was Senior Economist for International Affairs in the White House's Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration. He has worked for the International Monetary Fund, the US Feder… read more

Comments

How about letting markets set rates for loans. After all, it is the deposits of households and businesses in banks and money market funds that makes money available for borrowing. Why does the fed have to place itself in the middle of that process? Read more

Professor Roubini gives Trump credit he does not deserve. Trump does not understand monetary policy even if he is a Wharton graduate. He also has no indea how the Fed works. He has no policy positions. He is guided by situationallly determined self-interest. His positions are grounded on shifting sands. No one knows what Trump will do because Don the Con has no idea. Read more

Can there be a better free lunch than the combined pursuits of tax-cuts and infrastructure spending? Who is going to pay for this? Rhetoric and reality talks through the language that the market understands and in this case the understanding is leading to a rather vacuous position: this is the same Republicans who cried "Wolf" against Big Government not much long ago. Read more

Using open market operations (OMO) central banks, in particular the US one, are not independent. Quite the opposite, the allow the government to print money without raising taxes, effectively taking money from the population through currency debasement. For example, R6 trillion was pumped into the insolvent US merchant banks using this mechanism in 2008/2009.

So it is time for clear thinking economists to stop talking like the central banks are independent, when they are effectively appointed by the banks themselves, work hand in hand with government to fund silly wars and corporate welfare, and actively debase the currency as a secret tax on the people of the country. Read more

By not demanding the right kind of growth and simply throwing money at problems we have delayed and are adding to a much larger crisis lurking in the future. Worries exist as to just how much ammunition remains in the arsenals of the central banks. I find very troubling the argument that conditions remain too fragile to begin a return to historic norms. Also, questions remain as to whether the world can handle additional government debt when rates begin to rise. More on this subject in the article below.

http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2016/11/interest-rate-hike-if-not-now-when.html Read more

Creating "real jobs" in a mature market or economy is not an easy task and poses difficult challenges. Globalization has elevated the importance of creating jobs and a balanced economy that supports a strong middle class.

We must differentiate the difference between creating a valuable and worthwhile product that benefits society and breaking a window then praising the jobs replacing it yields. The article below delves into what constitutes a "real job" and its value.

http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2016/11/job-creation-constitutes-real-challenge.html Read more

Taxes on capital holdings or wealth itself would obviously cut the knot Roubini describes by increasing the scope for income tax cuts, and driving unproductive capital offshore. But it would take a truly new type of Republican to suggest that Read more

Another way of saying this is that a loose fiscal policy tells all the currency manipulators that additional profits are available to be taken from the US so the dollar strengthens in order for profits to be taken. After the profits have been taken, the US is left with additional govt debt which then weakens the dollar. Raising interest rates increases the reparation payments the US makes to the currency manipulators.But if balanced trade is enforced then everything changes... Read more

"Only time – and the market – will tell if Trump has struck the right balance. "Well, I do not think that that Trump matters a lot. The reaction at the markets did show into the very same direction: does not matter.What might matter more is the fact of now having 14 straight months of industrial production decline YoY. The longest string of contraction without a recession in 96 years.Either this is really an extraordinary exception ,or we are already in a non-disclosed recession...Recession and liquidity-trap might create some panic - paired with an US-election this might have led to such things like a self-declared socialist becoming the next president...... so, "the markets" have only a few weeks left to make Obama to become the scapegoat of the massive problems lying ahead... Read more

Roubini continues clueless regarding the monetary situation we live in. Until confidence is regained, and liquidity preferences change to normal levels, there is nothing the FED can do unless looking completely stupid and clueless like Janet did in the last rate hike.

I have no doubts the Trump administration is going to be very good for the Economic science, it’s going to be the beginning of the end for fresh water economists, unfortunately this will be because it will completely fail, starting with the monetary policies….Read more

PS On Air: The Super Germ Threat

NOV 2, 2016

In the latest edition of PS On
Air
, Jim O’Neill discusses how to beat antimicrobial resistance, which
threatens millions of lives, with Gavekal Dragonomics’ Anatole Kaletsky
and Leonardo Maisano of
Il Sole 24 Ore.

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